GOING HOME

The most exciting part of my week thus far has been the fact that I'm going home on Wednesday. I love New York and school and all my friends here but I'm very much ready to go home. I haven't been home since I left in August and I'm more than ready for a break at this point. Classes have been stressful lately, and there's been a lot on my plate. A good long break is highly called for.

In other news, the Mixtapes performed at the Bronx Botanical Gardens yesterday. That was pretty fun, we sang two half hour sets and we got to see the train show for free. As far as I could tell, it was just a bunch of miniature trains running through fake cityscapes and to-scale versions of historical NYC landmarks. It was cool I suppose, but not really my thing. It was nice that we got to go for free, though. The Gardens paid for our tickets because we were performing there. We sang outside which wasn't too bad for the first set but for the second set we were all FREEZING so I put my jacket and gloves and hat back on. It was definitely a fun experience and a nice way to end my first semester with the Mixtapes.

The Mixtapes Who Stole Christmas!

Concert weekend, yay! Yesterday we had our Christmas-themed concert, How the Mixtapes Stole Christmas. It was a blast! We definitely didn't have as big of a crowd as we did for our last concert, but it was a decent crowd and they had good energy. We didn't have an opener for this one, so we added two songs from our last concert repertoire to round out the night and make it a fuller concert. I had a couple solo-y moments in this concert which made me happy. I sang in the trio for our Mariah Carey "All I Want for Christmas/Christmas (Baby Please Come Home" mash-up.

We also had three small group songs where we split the entire Mixtapes into three smaller groups and each group sang a different Christmas song. My group sang "Sleigh Ride". The arrangement was really cool because it was the one song the entire way through, but we change the style in which we were singing, we sang it "in the style of" a bunch of different groups. We started out in the style of Reliant K, then we moved to The Ronettes, then Ella Fitzgerald, then TLC, then Karmin, then a regular section, then we had a 7/8-time section, and we finished with a regular 4/4-time section. The way the piece was arranged meant that everyone in the group got a small solo. I soloed in the Karmin section, and then in the regular section after we traded the solo between Andrew, Sarah, and me. It was nice to have a chance to solo so I was pretty happy.

We tried to live-stream this concert like we did the last one, but when we went to turn it off at the end we realized it wasn't running the entire time. We did have a camera running filming the entire concert, so we'll put videos up soon.

Also, side note, I'm going into my last week of classes for the semester. WHERE DID THIS SEMESTER GO??? I'm genuinely curious, because there's no way that three months have gone by. As hard as it is to believe that the semester's almost up, I'm very much ready to fly home a week from Wednesday. It's been waaaayyyy too long since I've been home, and I'm in need of a good long break.

Thanksgiving in New Jersey

This Thanksgiving I spent the holiday in New Jersey with my friends Kiyan and Dan. We stayed at Kiyan's house for the weekend. On Wednesday Dan and I took the bus from Port Authority to Montvale, where Kiyan lives, and he picked us up from the bus stop. We drove to his house and hung out there for about an hour and a half or so, talking to his parents and figuring out our next course of action. Kiyan and Dan wanted to go to an arcade to play dance games (like DDR) so we went in search of the arcade. That was an adventure in and of itself, we drove around in circles basically trying to find this place. We found it eventually, and we spent about an hour and a half there. I read a book I brought while Dan and Kiyan played their games. Then we went back to the house and watched a movie called Ride Along. I'd wanted to see it when it was in theaters a while back but I never did. It was funny, but not quite what I was expecting.

Then the next day was Thanksgiving! The food was amazing, Kiyan's mom is a wonderful chef. We had turkey and stuffing, broccoli, asparagus, biscuits, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and something she called scalloped potatoes. They kind of reminded me of potatoes au gratin that I've had in the past, but these were cooked in some kind of creamy white sauce with mushrooms. For dessert we had homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie. The apple pie was so yummy! She made it based on a recipe she's had for something like twenty years, and it's probably the best apple pie I've had. She made everything from scratch, even the crust. Then after dinner and dessert we watched A Most Wanted Man, but I didn't see too much of it because I fell asleep about twenty minutes into the movie. Oh well!

Friday was nice and relaxing, we all slept in and then had open-face turkey and stuffing sandwiches for lunch. YUM!!! Best way to have next-day Thanksgiving food. We sat around for a bit trying to decide what we wanted to do, and then we came up with the idea of going and seeing Mockingjay. Dan hadn't seen the second Hunger Games movie, so we watched that while Kiyan did some work, and then we headed to a mall to get food and see the movie. The mall we went to was GIANT!! Even bigger than the San Francisco Westfield one, this was four floors and easily three times the size of Valley Fair in San Jose. Oh. My. Goodness. We ate at Yard House and I had really yummy pasta (Mom we should go to the one by us) and then saw Mockingjay. It was a really good movie! I love the Hunger Games series, I've read all the books, and I really enjoyed this movie. It's part one of two which is annoying because it means we have to wait until next Thanksgiving I think to see the end of it. Then after the movie Kiyan's parents picked us up and drove us into the city. They only live about 35 minutes away without any traffic, because they're right on the border of New York and New Jersey. Which, for someone from California where you drive 35 minutes (let alone two hours) and you're still in the same state, is a foreign concept.

Aca-weekend and NSC

This weekend was jam-packed with a capella.

First of all, an organization at NYU called Musicians as Healers was having an event on Thursday evening and they asked us to perform. It was during our rehearsal time which was perfect, so halfway through rehearsal we went over and sang for them. We sang four songs, and then we went back to rehearsal and kept rehearsing for about another hour.

Then on Friday we opened for the Macaulay Triplets from Macaulay Honors College. Macaulay Honors College is the honors college for the CUNY schools. The Triplets and the Mixtapes are good friends so we often open for each other a lot, and this was our first time opening for them this year. We were missing a few members of our group, which meant that we had a lot of alternates singing solos. One of our members Jared wasn't there, so I got to sing the "What Goes Around....Comes Around" solo in our Justin Timberlake medley. That was really fun! I sang the solo for our ICCA audition video but this was my first time performing it in front of an audience.

Saturday had no a capella, but I did go to the New Student Cabaret in the afternoon. I'm so thoroughly impressed with the freshman in my program; they're ridiculously talented! I'm just in awe of how good they sound. They blend so well, which I feel is completely different from my year. For my year's choir songs, I felt like we sounded like 31 soloists but this year's freshmen sound like a choir that's been rehearsing together for years, not just two or so months. I'm almost afraid of the freshman just because they're so good, they're definitely going to give everyone else a run for their money.

WE'RE GOING TO THE ICCAS!

THE MIXTAPES ARE GOING TO THE ICCAS!!!!! I'm so unbelievably excited for this! My life is Pitch Perfect now (hehehe).

The competition starts in February and there's a couple different dates we could compete for quarterfinals, and I think we get to submit our preferences and then they assign us a date. I looked at the website and the locations for ICCA Northeast (that's our divison, apparently we're in a new division this year) are in either upstate NY or Massachusetts. Devin, our MD, is thinking we might try for a Massachusetts one because she's from just outside of Boston, so we could stay at her house and not have to pay for a hotel or try to go back that same night. It's looking like it'll be an overnight affair because the event starts late and we have to stay the entire time because they announce the results of the quarterfinals that night, so it makes sense to just stay wherever we are and come back the next day. Either way, I'm still really excited to compete, it's going to be so much fun. We've already started thinking about what we want our set to be and I can't wait til we figure it out because the ICCA set is going to have all new soloists, which gives me another chance to try for a solo and see if I get one this time.

Other than that, life has been pretty boring, nothing much to report. OH, my section of Song Analysis performing in Program Meeting this Friday, which I'm both excited and nervous for. I know both of my songs and I feel confident in the way I perform them, but it'll be my first time performing in Program Meeting, and my first time performing for literally the entire program since maybe New Student Cab. I don't count the Date Auction performances because not everyone was there, and it was more of a fun casual thing than what Friday is going to be. OH YEAH! New Student Cab is this weekend and I'm sooooo excited to see all the cute freshies perform! I remember how excited the upperclassmen were for my NSC and I'm super excited for this years'.

No New News

Sorry to report that nothing exceptionally exciting or thrilling has happened this week.

Classes are still going well, we're getting closer and closer to my section of Song Analysis' performance in program meeting on the 21st. We're getting to our third and fourth songs in class, and I think we'll be deciding soon which two of the three/four that we want to present in program. I'm still on my second song but I'm almost done with song two, and I'll be moving on to song three. I don't think everyone will get to a fourth song, it really just depends on timing and how many people get coached per day and whatnot. I'd like to get to a fourth song, so that I have more options when I have to choose what to perform in program meeting.

Mixtapes rehearsals are going well, we're hard at work rehearsing for our next concert on December 6. Everything seems to be moving quicker for this concert, but I think this is the normal rate at which we work, or at least the rate at which we try to work. I heard that last year (and even for the first concert) they wouldn't get the theme decided until maybe a week or two before the concert so they wouldn't get advertisements out (like posters) until pretty soon before the concert. So now we're trying to get this kind of stuff decided ahead of time so that we can advertise sooner and get the word out to more people. This upcoming concert is our holiday concert, and the theme is The Mixtapes Stole Christmas. We've got some holiday mash-ups mixed in with regular repertoire, which is nice because it means it won't be all holidays songs.

Halloweekend and Aca-news

Halloween in New York City is always an adventure. I dressed up as a Doctor Who nerd this year (to which many of my friends commented that I didn't even need to dress up) and hopped around the city with some of my Mixtapes friends. My friend Andrew and I started out at Chipotle because they have $3 anything if you come in costume, yay! Then we met up with Jerry and walked over to the Halloween parade. That was fun because I couldn't see anything (yes, sarcasm). My favorite moment of the parade was standing behind a huuuuuge black guy and his girlfriend who had the biggest hair I've ever seen. At one point I must have made a joke about being so short, because she turned around and saw me, nudged her boyfriend, and was like, "Hey, babe, let me stand in front of you, there's a little girl behind you". To which I responded very indignantly, "I'm not little! I'm almost twenty!" Of course I didn't actually  say this but I really wish I had. I'm not little! Then after a while we got bored of the parade and met up with Jerry's roommate Taylor, and we all headed back to my room to hang out before going to party #1 of the evening. I didn't have any plans for the entire night so when Andrew asked me if I wanted to go party hopping with him I said sure. We went to two parties that were being hosted by friends of his from when he went abroad to Prague last semester, and we ended the night at a party hosted by a former Mixtape, Allie. Overall the evening was okay, but I think I might have enjoyed myself better if I were sitting at home watching movies and eating candy.

Aca-news! We submitted our audition video to the ICCAs so we'll be hearing about that by November 15 I believe. We were also contacted by the Sing Off, and they asked us if we were still interested in auditioning. When Andrew tried calling them no one picked up, but he emailed them anyway with our ICCA audition video and also asked if there were any logistics that needed to be dealt with. So we purposefully auditioned for the ICCAs and we accidentally auditioned for the Sing Off! We'll see how everything pans out.

ICCA Auditions!

Today in rehearsal we filmed our audition videos for the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella (ICCA). I think we have to submit three songs, but we recorded multiple takes of four songs just in case one of the songs doesn't come out as well. It was actually really fun, we reserved a larger room and someone brought in a camera and we had a pretty cool set up. We recorded "Satisfaction", "Problem", "Thinking About You", and "Evolution of Justin Timberlake". I was a little nervous for "Evolution of JT" because one of our members Jared couldn't be there, and he has two solos in that song so the alternates had to sing them. I'm the alternate for the "What Goes Around Comes Around" solo that he has, so I had to sing it for this video. It's funny how nervous I was because it wasn't like it was a performance or anything, but of course the first time I have to semi-perform this solo is when we're submitting a video that determines whether or not we make the cut and get asked back to compete at the ICCA competition in February. So just a little stressful. I sang it the octave up because the octave it's written in is a little low for me, and the first rehearsal that I tried singing it Devin freaked out. She was like, "You sang it the octave up, I worship the ground you live on". So I guess it worked? It took us about two hours to film everything and we took multiple takes of each song to make sure we got a good one. It seemed like everyone had the plague though, because Devin was sick and couldn't sing so her solos were covered by people (I covered a little mini one right before the one I was already covering) and Tom was sick as well as Jerry. Time to start taking Airbourne religiously, I suppose!

FIRST MIXTAPES CONCERT

This has been such a crazy busy weekend!! I think over the course of the weekend, from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, I was only home for maybe a total of six hours, that's how busy I was with concert preparations.

 I was on the decorations committee with Ursula and Jerry, and we spent Friday afternoon coming up with fake dating profiles for each of the members to hang up on the walls, and then we also went to buy paint and cut out cardboard to use to make a Polaroid-esque cutout that people could take pictures with (our social media integration). We had rehearsal Friday night from 8-10 and then Ursula and I went to the Brooklyn apartment (where Jerry and two other Mixtapes live) to continue working on the decorations. Ursula was working on the dating profiles while Jerry and I painted the Polaroid cut out. I was very proud of myself for being artistic and painting, it made me really happy. And it turned out really well! By the time we finished,  it was around 3 in the morning so Ursula decided to just stay as opposed to making the hour-long trek back to Manhattan. We slept on the couches downstairs and then left around 11 the next morning. We got back to Manhattan a little after noon and agreed to meet up again around 2:30/3 to buy wall decorations and other decorations for the room. I went home, took a two hour nap, showered, and then headed down to meet Ursula. We spent about an hour shopping for decorations and then we came back to my room to get ready before call at 6.

We got to the venue a little before 6 and quickly ate before going in to start the decorations. I think it ended up looking pretty cool. Our color scheme was black, white, and red so we bought black, white, and red streamer things that we hung along the walls, and we put the fake dating profiles underneath them. We set up the Polaroid cut out by the door so that people could take pictures if they wanted.

We had a quick sound check for the Vocaholics (one of the all-male groups) and for the Cleftomaniacs (the all-girl group) and for us and then we mingled for a bit until it was time for the concert to start. The Vocaholics opened and they were incredible! I went to all their concerts last year and I still love them, I'm such a huge fan. Then the Cleftomaniacs went on, and they were good too. Finally it was our turn! Josh and Ian went to go set up the microphones and then we all ran down the center aisle onto the performance area.

It was such an incredible experience. I thought I was happy before about being in the group, but having our first concert changed everything. I was on such a high from the performance and hearing the audience cheer for us. I distinctly remember a moment toward the end of Evolution of Justin Timberlake when I realized that we were almost at the end of the song and of the concert and I got kind of mad because I didn't want it to end! When we finished one of the members of the group was joking about an encore but I was like, we don't have enough material for an encore; we sang all the material we know and the new members don't know old repertoire.

It was so fun to see all my friends after the concert who'd come out to see me. A surprising number of people showed up to see me, and I was really touched. It was nice because it was kind of like they were my surrogate family. Afterwards we had to stay and clean up the room, which didn't take too long. Then we all headed over to Andrew's apartment for the after party. That was a strange experience because there were a bunch of random people there that didn't seem to know anyone. The people that were invited were Mixtapes (obviously) and Vocs and Cleftos; some of the Vocs showed which was nice because they're all cool guys, and none of the Cleftos showed which was okay because they're kind of their own separate group, they don't mingle too much. And then of course people brought their friends, like I brought Elle and Sharon. But I remember sitting outside and seeing a group of random people walk in and I was like "Does anyone know these people?" and no one knew them. There was probably some connection there, but it was very vague.

Overall the entire weekend was insanely busy but fun. My first Mixtapes concert went really well and I'm so happy to be a part of this amazing family.

Like Fake Humans/Fall Break

Fall Break is upon us! Even though I didn't go home this year, I'm still enjoying the long weekend and the break from school. Fall Break kind of started early for me because two of the classes I normally have on Fridays were canceled, which means the break started for me at 11:30 on Friday afternoon. That night I went to go see this band Like Fake Humans perform at the Bitter End. I know almost the entire band, because I met one of the lead singers, Rach, through VP friends last year, and then the other lead singer, Ian, the drummer Josh, and the pianist Devin are all in the Mixtapes with me. The only person I didn't know was their other guitarist Omar, and I met him after the concert. I'd heard of their band before when I met Rach last year but I didn't think too much of it, and I'd never heard any of their music before. This year when I realized that I knew 80% of the band, I decided I needed to give their music a listen. I found their SoundCloud account and listened to everything they had up, and I really like their stuff! So it was pretty cool to see them perform live. I'm also still in constant awe of the people in my a capella group and how talented they are. I mean, everyone's so versatile. Devin sings, arranges music, and plays incredible piano; Ian sings and plays guitar really well; Josh beatboxes and drums like a devil. The other singer Rach is amazing too, I'd never heard her sing before and I really like her voice, it's different but has a really cool quality to it.

Last night Kaitlyn and I went up to her friends Megan and Nick's apartment in Harlem. These are people she met at a bar on her 21st birthday over the summer and immediately bonded with them over Game of Thrones and other nerdy tv shows. They have game nights every once in a while and usually they have them at Kaitlyn's apartment, but this was the first one at Megan and Nick's. Kaitlyn was really excited for me to meet her friends, and I was too! We got there and brought the cranberry orange muffins we made, which were SO GOOD. We played Apples to Apples, Kaitlyn won that one. And then we played this game (I never knew what it was called) where we gave a category and then everyone wrote down something in that category on a small piece of paper which was then taped on the forehead of the person to their left. So everyone had a piece of paper on their foreheads, and we went around in a circle and took turns asking specific people questions about the word(s) on our forehead to try and guess what it was. The first category was common household items, and Kaitlyn gave me three-hole punch which was SO HARD TO GUESS. She kept saying that I was the most likely out of everyone to get it, which infuriated me because I was second-to-last and still couldn't figure it out. But once I got it, I felt so dumb because I have one on my desk, and Kaitlyn was right--I was the most likely out of all of us to get it because I hole punch music all the time. The second category was occupations, and I gave Nick "Pope". It was the best one of that round, everyone agreed, and it was so much fun watching him struggle to guess what it was. When he finally got it he was so mad at himself, because I guess he and Megan went to Italy last year and went to one of the Pope's audiences so they've actually somewhat met him. Overall it was a really fun night, and I'm really glad that I met Kaitlyn's friends. We've already planned to go recital dress shopping for Kaitlyn next month and Megan's going to come with us, and she wants to plan girls nights down in our area.

First Mixtapes Mini Performance!

This weekend was my very first performance with the Mixtapes! We performed for NYU Woodwind Day, as part of an agreement with our Steinhardt faculty liason. We have a space reserved every week in the Steinhardt building and in order for this to be possible, we have to have a staff liason. Our liason happens to be involved in the woodwind program, and as a favor to him we perform for Woodwind day. It was an interesting experience, I'd say, but very fun!

We had three mics, two for the solos and one for our beatboxer. There wasn't any other mic that was picking up the rest of the group, so all I could really hear was the soloists and our beatboxer because they were the only ones with any amount of amplification. But the acoustics in that theater are weird because I could hardly hear the people immediately next to me. Besides the weird acoustics, we had really good energy and (from what I could hear) we sounded really good. I had a geek moment onstage where I was like "Hey, I'm part of this really cool a capella group. And we sound really good. I'm so excited!!!" This mini performance definitely got me excited for our concert which is coming up in about two weeks, which is crazy to think about.

Aca-weekend!

Not too much to report this weekend, just lots of a capella rehearsing and hanging out with friends. Friday night was the Player's Club Date Auction, which went really well. We raised about $1300 which just about matched what we raised last year. OH and they announced the show we're doing in the winter, we're doing The Drowsy Chaperone! Annie (my mentee) and I performed Scot Alan's "Fly Fly Away" and it went really well, people kept coming up to us and telling us how amazing we sounded. We went first, so I opened the Date Auction for the second year in a row. Maybe let's make it a third...?

Saturday night was my Mixtape friend Ian's 21st birthday so we threw him a surprise party. When he walked through the door he was so surprised that he fell over. He yelled "I HAVE TO PEE" and ran into the bathroom before saying hi to everyone. That was a fun party because I didn't know as many people, I only knew the Mixtape people but I got to meet some pretty cool people. I took Sharon with me to this party too and she's getting to know my Tapes friends. In fact, Taylor (roommates with some of the Tapes) invited Sharon to their housewarming party that they're having next weekend. So it's kind of cool that she's getting to know my a capella family.

Party/Movie Weekend

This past week has been pretty low-key, nothing of great importance to report. I went to a birthday party on Saturday night for one of the Mixtapes, Jeremy. It was in Brooklyn so that was an adventure getting there. I'd been to that apartment before (three of the Mixtapes live there, and I've hung out there before) so I kind of knew where I was going, but its pretty deep into Brooklyn so it took about an hour to get there. The party itself was pretty fun, I brought Sharon so she got to meet all my Tapes friends and they really liked her. Jeremy also brought some of his Tisch friends so I got to meet those people too. I don't remember most of their names and I probably forgot them the minute I learned them but they were nice people.

We played some card game, I don't remember what it was called but there were some cards laid out face up (how many depended on how many people were playing), and then the rest of the cards were put into equal (ish) piles which were then split up evenly among the players. The goal was to make four of a kind on the cards that were face up, but you could switch out one of the face up cards with your own if you already had two of a kind in your hand. Once a face up card had another card placed on top of it, I'm pretty sure that card can't be switched out, but I'm not sure on that part. I wasn't paying enough attention so I sucked pretty badly at that game.

At one point a bunch of us went up onto the roof (that seems to be a pretty popular thing to do in New York, is to go on the roof of buildings and hang out up there. Makes sense though, because its usually nice and cool and sometimes you can see stars, if you're lucky). It started drizzling a little bit but I didn't really notice, and it actually kind of felt nice.

The rest of the weekend I just sat around doing homework and watching movies. I made a small list of movies based on recommendations from friends and just what I felt I needed to watch to be a knowledgable human being. I watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Life Aquatic, and Annie Hall. I thought I'd like Hitchhiker's Guide better, because people told me it was sci fi comedy and that's what I like. Parts of it were funny but some parts I had absolutely no idea what was going on so I didn't like it too much. But I did really enjoy Annie Hall and The Life Aquatic, those were great movies.

Exciting Weekend with Katherine!

Katherine's in town this weekend, yay! It's like a mini vacation, we've gone to see shows and eaten at super yummy restaurants and spent about three hours in a bookstore (I may be exaggerating, I'm not sure).

The first night she got here, we went to go see Sleep No More at 10. Words can't describe that very strange experience. It kind of felt like the Tower of Terror, like the McKittrick Hotel is what Tower of Terror was based on. It probably wasn't, but it had the same feel. We walked in and checked in, and then we got a card (from a deck of cards) that was kind of our pass into the hotel. We waited in a lobby/bar area until they called our card numbers and then we headed in.

We got these creepy looking masks (I didn't keep mine but they looked weird) and got onto an elevator, and the elevator operator would stop at different floors and let a few people off before moving onto the next floor and letting more people off there, and so on. He said it was meant to be an "individual experience", which is an idea that didn't sit well with one woman who was there with her boyfriend/fiance/husband. She refused to go without him, and kept clinging to him. The elevator operator tried reasoning with her, saying that other people were waiting for her, because no one else could get off until she did. At this floor, Katherine got off and then the guy put his arm out to stop the rest of us before I could get off, so I knew I was going to be on a different floor. And that was fine, as much as I would've liked to go with Katherine, it was going to be cool to be able to explore on my own. Finally the elevator operator somehow managed to get the guy off and not let the girl off on the same floor, so we were able to get off.

The entire hotel was MacBeth themed, and it was very eerie. I was amazed by the detail--the smell, the feel of everything, and the attention to the littlest details. There was a typewriter on a desk in one of the rooms and I went in and read the letter that was half-typed, and it was actually legible and understandable. At first I was a little shy, just walking around and half-heartedly looking, but after a while I grew bolder and started picking things up and touching things. I went into one room that looked like a child's room, and I turned to look in the mirror and there was this really cool effect that made me look like a ghost, like I was semi-transparent. It was awesome. Before we got into the hotel, Katherine and I agreed upon a gesture that we'd use in the event that we got separated and thought that we had found each other again. After maybe half an hour (I wasn't paying too much attention to time), I heard someone clear their throat behind me and it was Katherine! From that point onward we stuck together, going into the same rooms and stuff but feeling free to explore within the rooms.

After maybe 45 minutes or so, the actors started coming into play. There were different scenes going on in different rooms, which was really cool, and then the scene would usually end with one of the actors exiting to a different room and whoever was watching would go and follow them. It felt weird at first just standing there watching and being so close, but I got over that after a while. We saw quite a few scenes all the way through. There was one scene where it was literally this guy washing and hanging up laundry and we watched the entire thing. It might've seemed silly otherwise but it was so fascinating to see how committed to this action he was, how real it was for him. He had a routine in washing his clothes and it was captivating to watch him wring out the clothes, shake them out, and then hang them over a ledge. He did this so matter-of-factly, as if it were just another day for him. At one point when we were following an actor to another room, we walked by a room that had padded walls and I decided to go inside to take a closer look. Katherine followed me, and while we were walking around and taking a look, someone slammed the door shut behind us. I just about had a heart attack, it was so scary. I thought for sure they'd locked the door, but when I tried it it was unlocked. I think maybe one of the security guards closed it, they were standing around in black masks to "guide" our experience and maybe that's what they were doing. Either way, scary. After that, we hurried to catch up with everyone else. It was interesting, I had no idea what the flow of the rooms were but in our meanderings we always managed to catch up to or find a scene to watch. One time we happened upon a scene in it's very beginning which was cool, we got to see it from start to finish.

At the end of the evening, all of the actors started ushering everyone into the ballroom for the final scene. All the main actors were standing at a long table on a high platform, designed to look like a banquet table. It was very intense, and you could tell something big was going to happen. Sure enough, they ushered everyone back away from the table a few feet to create room, and on the "stage" the actors were taking the guy playing Macbeth and standing him on a chair that they'd placed on the table. An actor placed a noose around his neck and tightened it, and as the music swelled and grew more intense, we could see Macbeth starting to come to and struggle against the noose. The music cut out for a second, and we could hear him scream. Then another actor kicked the chair out from underneath him and we heard a huge crack sound effect as the lights went out. When they started to come back up, we could see Macbeth swinging from the rope and hear the sound of rope creaking. As this all was happening, I couldn't help but think to myself that there must've been a harness rigged to the jacket he was wearing, and that the noose they put around his neck was hooked to a hook on the neck of the jacket to ensure it looked like he was hung by the neck. Even though I was distracted by the technical aspect, it was still very cool. That was the end, and we were all ushered out. It was just a very strange, confusing experience but it was really really cool. I'm very glad I went.

NYU: The Sequel

Round two of NYU is off to a good start! I auditioned and was accepted into the NYU Mixtapes which I'm absolutely over the moon about! Our first rehearsal is on Thursday and I absolutely cannot wait. They're such a cool group of people and I can't wait to get to know everyone. I just got 20 something new best friends.

Other than that, being back at NYU almost feels like I never left. The first few days I was here, before school started, those days felt a little weird. I had to reacclimate myself to the disgustingly humid weather--not fun, let me tell you. The first few days were miserable, weather-wise. Then to top it all off, I got sick. At first I thought it was just allergies or something from traveling and being in a new city and having to get used to new allergens, but it turned into a full-fledged cold a day or two before school started. Not fun. 

Once school officially started, it kind of felt like I never left, like the summer never happened. Yes, I'm taking different classes and I'm living somewhere new so the commute is different, but I got back into the swing of things and now it feels just like a continuation of last year (which it is, actually). I've met a lot of the freshmen, and they're all so adorable and new. It's hard to believe that just a year ago I was them, fresh-faced and ready and eager to be at NYU. I still love being here, it's just a different excitement. The initial honeymoon phase has ended and now I'm fully settled in, I think. I don't feel so green anymore. 

Living with my best friend Elle is also working out really well. Our schedules are different enough that I actually hardly ever see her, except for at night when we're doing homework and going to bed. I have classes primarily in the morning/early afternoon and hers are more spread out, usually in the afternoon going into the evening, so we don't overlap much. But we cooked dinner the other night and before school started we saw Pippin, so we do hang out a bit. I think this is going to work out really well. 

Freshman Year: A Review

I've been home for just about two weeks now, and it's still hard to believe that my freshman year is already over. Not missing NYC quite yet, I'm rather enjoying being home, having my own room with my own bed, and best of all my own bathroom. Sharing a bathroom with four other girls isn't the easiest thing I've done. I also missed having a car to drive, and the beautiful California weather. Nothing beats sunny California.  Oh, and of course I missed my family!! That goes without saying. Almost four months is much too long to be away from home, in my opinion.

How can I recap my freshman year in one short blog post? First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed living in New York for nine months, though I wasn't always a fan of the weather. Having experienced a real East coast winter, I'll never complain about the weather again. I know what it really means to be freezing!

Weather aside, New York was amazing, and so was NYU. I met so many incredible people, chief among them my best friend Elle. I worked with some deeply talented people, both in and out of my program. NYU continues to amaze me with the people it admits; it might sound silly but I find it amazing that there are so many talented people outside of my program. Obviously my program isn't the only program at NYU (though in my opinion it's the best one) but it's just so amazing what people there can do. I met an incredible beatboxer who helped me out tremendously with my final producing project, I met some brilliant photographers and filmmakers, as well as the most talented people at NYU, my fellow VP's.

My first year of the Vocal Performance program was enlightening. Living in my own small bubble in the Bay Area I knew fairly well where I stood on the talent ladder, but I didn't know how I measured up in the real world. Going to NYU and meeting and hearing my fellow classmates and the upperclassmen was an interesting experience because some of the upperclassmen are ridiculously talented. One guy is in the national tour of West Side Story as Tony, which is awesome! I'm really glad that I got to work with some of the seniors and juniors in the shows that I teched because I met some pretty cool people and learned a lot from them. Even though I didn't do any shows this year as a performer, being on the other side of the table was still a learning experience because I was able to observe and absorb the information and direction that the director gave, and I'm excited to hopefully work with him and my fellow classmates in the future.

Where Did Freshman Year Go?

It's Sunday evening and I'm starting to realize that it's May, which means freshman year is coming to a close. Where did this past year go? I've always thought that the passage of time was a fascinating thing, something I never fully understood. How can a day or a week feel like it's dragging on forever, yet I look back and a month has passed in the blink of an eye? Wasn't it just April like, yesterday? And now here I am, going into my last full week of classes for freshman year. I just went to a floor meeting where my RA talked to us about the checkout process. Weren't we just checking in?

And now I'm thinking about finals, memorizing music for my juries, writing the last rough draft for my last essay in what might be my last writing class at NYU (relieving thought). It's bittersweet, but at the same time I'm so overloaded with end-of-the-year tasks that it's stressful. I don't really have time to sit and reflect on the past year because there's so much I still need to do. I have to figure out how I'm going to pack up my life here and bring everything back to California. I have to organize rehearsals for my production final on Friday. I have to study for my musicianship final. I have to write another paper for my comic book class. There's so much I have left to do that it's all I can really think about.

As much as I've loved being here in New York, I'm more than ready to be anywhere but here. I want nothing more than to be back home in my own bed with my own room and my own bathroom. I'm actually really excited to start work, too. I've spent enough time working backstage or behind the table; I'm ready to start performing again. And even though it's May, I don't think the weatherman's gotten the memo yet. It's 60 at best, maybe sunny but windy and muggy. It's the grossest combination I can think of, and it makes me really miss California weather. And maybe I miss my family, a little bit.

When I start thinking about everything I have yet to do, it starts getting a bit stressful. I have to keep telling myself to take things one battle at a time. I'll tackle one project, then another, then another. I don't have to do everything at once. I think my main motivational factor is the fact that in two weeks from tomorrow, I'll be on my way back to sunny California (and In-n-Out). In a way, I'm glad to do all this work because I know that once it's done, that means I get to go home.


On a lighter, happier note, I went to Ikea yesterday with my friend Kaitlyn to help her shop for stuff for her new apartment. Her place is soooo close to campus--she's even closer than I am! We took the subway to Brooklyn to what we thought was the stop for the Ikea shuttle, but when we got there we didn't see it so we decided to walk there. It only took about half an hour, and it was a nice day so I didn't mind. The only upsetting part was when we were crossing the street, right in front of Ikea, and a bus turning left almost hit us. We had the walk sign, and I think it was the type of situation where the driver had a green light but he had to wait for the crosswalk to be clear. Obviously he didn't see us, or he didn't care. Luckily I saw the bus coming and grabbed for Kaitlyn and we ran to get out of the way but it was a pretty close call. People sitting in the bus saw us run and looked as shocked as we probably did. So that was my near-death experience for the day.

The rest of the day was much better. We got there around 1 and decided to get some food before we shopped, and you know what that means-- SWEDISH MEATBALLS!!!!!!!!! So yummy! Kaitlyn treated me since I was helping her and I had no argument! We also got Swedish Fish (hehehe). It wasn't a painful experience, shopping there. We picked out a bed, a mattress, a bookshelf, and a set of shelves that she ordered and had them deliver the next day, so we didn't need to worry about carrying them or anything. Trying out the mattresses was fun, some of them were so squishy and comfy! I could've fallen asleep on some of them. I found one I thought was suuuper comfortable (this is my not so subtle hint that perhaps I need a new bed at home...). After we finished finding the furniture, we went downstairs to the marketplace to pick up some cups, wine glasses, silverware, knives, cutting boards, and drawers to go inside the shelving unit. We ended up carrying all that back to her apartment, but between the two of us it wasn't too bad. I'm sure we were a sight on the subway back to Manhattan though, with giant bags.

Mets and Walks

Wednesday I went with a group of friends to the Mets game. We had free tickets because NYU was being honored as one of the top organizations in blood donations. It was some collaboration between the Mets and the New York Blood Association, and they were presenting us (along with other organizations) before the game. We only lasted about four innings because we were so cold!! We underestimated what we'd need to bring and I only had a sweatshirt and my Northface, which I almost didn't bring. It would've been smart to bring hats, gloves, scarves, and blankets at the very least. It was a fun experience though, I've never been to a baseball game before. I got a hot dog because I'm told that's what you do at baseball games. And it was fun hanging out with friends--I got to hang out some more with some of Elle's friend from IRHC which was really cool. Some of them are living in Carlyle with us next year so we're going to have "family dinners" once a week or something like that.

This weekend Caroline and I went on walks around the city which was really nice! Saturday we walked up to Central Park and walked around the Central Park reservoir, around the area, and we walked through Columbia a bit. It was fun to see a part of the city we don't normally visit, and it was good to be in the fresh air. We walked for two and a half hours, and then it took us an hour and four different trains to get back to NYU because the 1 train wasn't running unless you had an unlimited access card, so we had to take a variety of different lines to get uptown to a station where they had downtown trains running, and then to Times Square, and from there to 8th St. Insanity, to say the least. But I definitely got my money's worth from that subway swipe!

What happened this week?

Some weeks I find it really hard to come up with something worth writing about. Honestly, there wasn't anything super exciting that happened to me this week. Friday night I saw Divergent, finally, which I was really happy about. I saw it for free because the girl I went with had free movie tickets. I honestly loved the movie, there were definitely some things that were changed between the book and the movie but I still liked it. The girl they had playing the main character, Tris, was the perfect choice. Even though I knew what was going to happen the entire movie, I found myself on the edge of my seat with a mixture of anticipation and curiosity to see how they interpreted certain scenes.

Saturday was Elle's birthday, so we grabbed lunch and walked around town. There was a street market on Broadway so we explored that. There were some pretty cool vendors there. Elle commented that there seemed to be a lot of pocket watches for sale, which I found odd. Then we sat in the park for a bit. We really just relaxed in the nice weather until we needed to get ready for dinner at 6:30. We went back to Max Brenner--I think it's become our birthday place. This time we just got an appetizer (the most delicious wings ever) and entrees. We skipped on dessert, although I told the waitress when Elle wasn't at the table that it was her birthday, so they brought out a chocolate treat for her. Then we set up for the party we were throwing in her room. We put up lights that we bought earlier and set up the drinks and snacks. It ended up being a lot of fun! Everyone got dressed up a bit and I met a lot of Elle's friends from IRHC (Inter Residence Hall Council). She says these are some of her closest friends at NYU and they're all living in Carlyle or Gramercy next year so we'll be hanging out with them a lot. We actually ran into some of them today at lunch and they invited me to a birthday party they're having next weekend for this guy named Walker. So I think this was a successful weekend all in all, I met new people and made some pretty cool new friends!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Spring!

SPRING. IS. HERE!!!!! The weather this past weekend has been a dream--totally makes the past few months of horrible weather worth it. This was definitely a weekend that made me glad I live in New York. It was Weekend on the Square for all the adorable, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed incoming freshmeat at NYU which was kind of fun to experience second-hand. I never got to go to my Weekend on the Square because it was too far away, but it was fun to see all the little 'uns walking around WSP looking bewildered. I know the feeling, kids. It's also kind of crazy to think that in a matter of weeks, freshman year will be over and I'll be a wise fool once more. Where has the time gone??

This has been an interesting weekend, weather aside. I performed in First Stages which was a very interesting experience. The event was put on by the Vocal Performance program in conjunction with the Music Composition department. Music comp majors submitted pieces that were then sung by vocal performance (and music education) majors. It was a pretty short performance, I think there were eight songs and in total it was about 45 minutes. I met some pretty interesting people, both composers and people outside of the program which was nice. We had three shows, Friday and Saturday at 8pm and then Saturday at 3pm. The "matinee" was so poorly attended that Curtis (my friend/the guy organizing the event) had the performers sit in the audience to flesh it out a bit. Saturday night was definitely the best turn out, and I think the best performance. They filmed it so I'll be hearing about that soon.

I also went to Forbidden Belting tonight, which was put on by the VP juniors. Oh. My. Goodness. I find myself always in awe of the talent in my program. I can't believe sometimes that I got into such an amazing program, and that I'm one of these people. It was sooo much fun to watch my friends belt their faces off and sing repertoire that's "forbidden" (which is a total joke, we're encouraged to explore more contemporary repertoire as long as we do it healthfully and are mindful of the process they want us to follow). It was in a cool venue too, the Duplex Cabaret Room which was above the Duplex bar. We're thinking we might want to do a Forbidden Belting cabaret of our own when we're juniors at this location, because it was a really cool place. Very intimate, small but cozy.

Back to the beautiful weather. I spent as much time as I could outside, I think I even got a little bit of a tan :) I would bring a book or homework out to the park and read on the grass, and I walked around the West Village with Elle earlier today. It's been so nice that I've worn flip flops for three or four days in a row, and today I wore shorts!! I wore a dress yesterday too, it felt so nice. I think at this point the weather's only going to improve. There might be a few rainy spring days but spring is here to stay!! Spring is definitely my favorite season in New York--it's warm and sunny but not as humid and gross as summer.

Closing Time

Today was the last performance of LONY, which marks the end of the insanity that has been the past quarter. I've been working on a show literally since before the semester started, and I'm finally done.

LONY was such a unique experience. Every performance was sold out and we had people waiting on a stand-by list to see if they'd get in. And the cast definitely improved as performances went on. There was even a minor scene thrown in right after opening and our lead, Dan, picked it up and memorized it flawlessly. It was so exciting to work on this show and to get to see it built from the ground up. Our director John described it as a "workshop with a bit of stuff", meaning a workshop with added costumes and props and sets that a workshop might not normally have. Well, we had quite a bit of stuff. It took 45 minutes every night to clear and put away all the props and costumes every night.

It was an interesting experience, working backstage. At times it kind of felt like Alex (the other assistant stage manager) and I were being taken for granted, but then there would be moments when cast members thanked us profusely, and made comments like "the program is lucky to have ASM's like you guys". After the closing show, the cast gave us and the stage manager "I <3 NY" cups with our names on them that they all signed. It was so sweet! We all had to help strike, and afterwards the cast went to Silver Spurs and had dinner, and I was invited as well. It was kind of nice to hang out with them as people, instead of just interacting with them backstage. The drummer was there too and we all got to know him a bit as well.

Overall this has been a really rewarding experience. I'm so glad I signed on to do this. In the beginning I wasn't too thrilled, just because I felt like I wasn't doing much, but once we got into the theater that all changed. I've always been interested in the backstage work and this show gave me a great opportunity to be a stagehand. I earned three of the four crew credits that I need to graduate, but a lot of the seniors are encouraging me to argue for four, because I worked so hard and put in so much time. We'll see about that, I don't mind doing spots for a show next year and getting two points for that. I might ask about working the Senior Showcase in April for one point, so that I can get it all done this year.

Tech Week, Fondly Nicknamed Hell Week

My life the last couple of weeks has been Legend of New York (LNY) and this past week has been no exception. Because it was spring break, we've been having rehearsals from 2-10. Thursday marked our first official day of tech and it was LONG. I'm going to be "backstage" during the show, but in our theater that means I'll be in one of the two voms that lead to the dressing room. Our theater is not like most conventional theaters. The backstage area is actually underneath the audience, as opposed to being actually behind the stage. That means that actors have to use one of two voms to get to the backstage area. The voms are just long hallways that lead underneath the audience, I think the name originated from theater in the olden days, I have a very vague understanding of the name.

Anywho, I'll be on headset for the shows, which is fine except the headsets aren't portable which means I'm basically tethered to the wall for two and a half hours. Our stage manager has a portable one, but it makes sense that if anyone gets it, it's her. It just means that during tech when actors need me to get something or if I need to move something I have to remove the headset and potentially miss something that might be said over headset that I need to hear. It's not that big of an issue in the end, though. During tech I get to catch up on my reading, which is nice. I need to remember to bring a reading light because I don't have much light on my side. I have a nice little stool and I created a makeshift table to put my coffee on. It's quite cozy back there, actually.

We were running behind a little, but today our director said that the tech crew had put in a bit more work and pre-teched some lighting cues so that we could run straight through the rest of the act and hopefully not have to stop much. And we almost got through act one! We just have one more song to stage and a small scene and then that's the first act. Tomorrow and the rest of the week is 6:30-midnight, so hopefully we'll get everything done before we open Friday. We're hoping to do a dress rehearsal tomorrow with the band and then finish teching as much of the show as possible. I think everyone's starting to feel the time crunch which hopefully means that people will come into tech more focused so that we can get a lot of stuff done.

PYT Reunion in NYC And It's Starting to Feel Like Spring

The temperature has been staying above the freezing mark for the last few days--it's starting to feel like spring!!! I brought out my North Face jacket and I've been wearing my high-tops instead of heavy duty winter boots. I even wore my sunglasses today! Unfortunately I've been cooped up in rehearsal for most of the day but I still find some time to enjoy the sunshine. Washington Square Park has been crazy crowded the last few days because the weather's been so nice. There's a guy who usually plays a baby grand in the park and he came back out today because the weather was finally nice enough. The irony with all of this is that this week is supposed to be really nice (Tuesday is going to be 57!!) and then spring break it's going to snow. But at least it'll be warm snow, it'll be in the high 30's, low 40's.

Sage Yort is in town visiting for her spring break, she's staying with Jason Vu for a few days, and so Sage and Annalise and I all got together on Friday to hang out and get coffee (Annalise goes to Pace which is about a twenty minute subway ride from NYU). It was really nice to hang out and catch up, and to rehash old PYT stories. It was so weird that all of us were hanging out again in New York City of all places!! And then on Saturday night I went to Jason's apartment because he was having some people over and Sage and Annalise were there (Annalise lives in the building next to Jason) and that was weird--to have all four of us hanging out in NYC. Someone should have taken a picture!

Saturday night I went with a bunch of program people to the show Chris Murrah was directing up at Columbia--he had directed Once On This Island and a bunch of us wanted to go out and support him. Plus, my voice teacher was in it! I knew he was a grad student at Columbia but I'd never seen him perform before. It was such a cool experience. He had a reeeeally long monologue halfway through act two and when I talked to him after the show, he said it was something like ten minutes long. That's insane! The show itself was really weird, it was some obscure new play that I can't even begin to describe. But Chris did a good job, as always, and it was really cool to see Dan perform.

We move into the theater on Tuesday for the show I'm assistant stage managing, and I'm really excited about that. It'll be cool to see the actual set, as opposed to the taped out squares and platforms on the floor. Alex, the other ASM, and I stayed after rehearsal to put stuff away and rip the tape off the floor and I have a newfound respect for whoever did that at PYT. It was fun at first but we had a lot of small pieces of tape to rip up because we had dotted lines denoting the edges of various platforms, so it was a lot of extra work. My fingers hurt now from ripping up the tape.

Blooooood!!!

So I donated blood today for the first time. That was definitely an interesting experience. I had signed up to do it at 2:15 but when I got there they said there was a 30-45 minute wait. I filled out an information sheet and signed in and sat down, and I kept noticing people getting sent outside to where the blood drive truck was. At one point I noticed a few girls who had definitely gotten there after me going in, so I walked up to the sign up sheet and saw that the lady had skipped my name, and crossed out names before and after mine. So I was like "Hey, that's my name and I'm here, so..." and she said "OH! I'm so sorry! You'll be the next one in."

When I first went into the truck, I walked back into a tiny closet of a room where a guy took my temperature, blood pressure, and he pricked my finger to take a small amount of blood (and that hurt a lot!). He asked a few questions based on the info sheet I filled out, like about how I went to Europe this past April. Then when he was done with me I sat down on a small bench to wait for a free chair to get my blood taken away. The chairs were super comfy, they looked like permanently reclined squishy chairs set into the walls, with armrests on the outside for the arm that they would take the blood from. The guy taking my blood wasn't as nice as the guy who took the tiny sample, and I kind of wished the other guy (I think his name was Jon) would do the procedure because he felt more comforting. It wasn't too bad in the end, though. The guy asked if I wanted to see the needle and I was like "NO!" so I looked away while he stuck me and it HURT!!! And then it just felt weird after that. The tube that ran from the needle to the bag was resting on my arm and it was warm which was the weirdest sensation ever. It only took about 15 minutes, which was less time than I was expecting. When I was done, they took me over to an area of the bus which had apple juice and various snacks, so I took a few apple juices (hehehe).

I walked home and I was fine, but I laid down to watch a bit of TV just to relax and I felt really not well. I texted Carolyn, the stage manager for the show I'm working on, and told her I didn't think I was going to be able to come into rehearsal because I'd donated blood and wasn't feeling well, and she said it was totally okay. I've spent the rest of the night drinking tons of water, sleeping, eating a bit, and watching Gilmore Girls. My 8 am class tomorrow was canceled earlier in the week so I get to sleep in tomorrow too, which is nice. I'm going to get lunch with Elle around noon because we've both been so busy, we haven't had time to hang out much.

From One Show to the Next....

   OOTI closed last weekend, and I'm surprised by how much I miss it. I see these people mostly every day, so it's not like I don't see anyone from the show anymore. But I miss seeing them every day and watching them perform from backstage. I went to an a capella concert last night and saw a lot of my OOTI friends and we were all talking about having a mini reunion at some point soon just to hang out and spend time with each other, which will be really nice.
   The show went very well, it was sold out all four performances to the point where we illegally added seats (shhh) so that people on the waiting list could get in too. Michael had a ticket for Friday night but he didn't get in until after the show, so I let Elle's friend Gavin have his ticket. Michael ended up seeing the Saturday matinee, and then he hung out with me backstage for the rest of the shows.
    Last weekend was one of the best weekends I've had in awhile. Michael came and visited from Georgia, which was absolutely amazing. When he got in on Friday, it was right after the show, and I got a text from him saying he was in the lobby. So I bolted out from backstage and ran into the lobby and jumped into his arms. It was the best feeling. He got to meet a lot of my VP friends, and I took him around the city a bit. We went up to Times Square and took some silly tourist-y pictures, and then we also walked around the NYU campus area. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and talking, which was really nice. After not seeing him for seven months, it was great to just be with him and spend time with him, even though we weren't doing anything super exciting. He would just hang out with me backstage and help me if I needed it, but for the most part he just sat around and played on his phone. I kind of felt bad but he said he didn't mind, he just wanted to be near me. We ate at some yummy restaurants too, which was a nice break from dorm food. We went to the Knickerbocker for Valentine's Day dinner, and that was soooo good. For dessert we had homemade coffee ice cream which was so delicious, I kind of wanted to order another one just for myself. The last dinner we had together was at Five Napkin Burger, which I've walked past a bunch of times and have always wanted to try. It was so good!! I haven't had a good, decent burger in a while. I definitely plan on going back there at some point. Michael had a 6 am flight on Monday so he got a cab at 4 am. We were going to go to the cast party which was that night, but we decided to go back to my room to enjoy our last few hours together before he left. Tears were definitely shed on my part, but he gave me his army PT shirt, a Tanker shirt, and my favorite plaid shirt of his. So I've been sleeping in those for the past week or so.
   This week has definitely not been as enjoyable as the past weekend, I think I was just kind of sad about Michael leaving and about the show ending. I've started rehearsals for Legend of New York, which is the new musical that Steinhardt is doing this semester. I'm ASMing it, along with my friend Alex. She and I are both coming off of OOTI, so we're pulling two shows in a row. This show is a different experience from OOTI, because I think for OOTI the artistic staff was much more relaxed and laidback, and I also felt more a part of the team. With Legend, I'm the ASM so there's more running around making copies or returning carts or taping the floor. It's more busy work, but I think it's also more typical of an ASM's job. OOTI wasn't really a good example of the norm, but then again Legend is a new work so it'll constantly be in flux. We'll see, though. It's been getting better, I don't hate coming to rehearsal anymore, but it's still not the most exciting part of my day.

Crazy busy!!

This week has been absolutely insane. First off, Once On This Island (OOTI) has been taking up all my spare time. At this point, my schedule consists of class, rehearsal, eating, and sleeping. I haven't had much time for anything else. But the show is coming along and it looks absolutely amazing. Originally, OOTI was a show that I was impartial about, maybe even not a favorite of mine, but what our director has done with it... it's unlike any other version of OOTI I've seen or heard about. We had our first rehearsal with the band today (it's just piano, and then we had the drummer and bass player come in), and it sounded so cool!!! I'm such a music geek. We made a joke out of it--you know you're a music major when you fangirl over a sitz-probe. Or, as our Jewish accompanist likes to joke, "If you need to relate to me what Christmas morning is like, you'd probably tell me it's like a sitz-probe".

We had Friday night off to go see the other show that Steinhardt is doing, Carousel. My first comment was that I didn't know we had so many skilled dancers! I kind of figured that because we were all music students, dance abilities came way last. But I was pleasantly surprised by the dance talent in my program. And again, like every time I see a program event, I got super excited and super proud of what people in my program can do. The skill level is simply unbelievable (yes I know, I'm geeking out again).

Classes have been pretty much the same as last semester, except for my Graphic Novel class. Not sure if I wrote about this already, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. It's so interesting to read comics and discuss them in class and recitations; I never thought there was much to comics, but there's so much  you could talk about. There's aesthetics, style, genre, tone, the list goes on and on. And I'm also reading some classic, Golden Age comics like the early Fantastic Four and The Spirit and such. It's going to be a fun class!

Back to NYC we go!

First week back at school: check! I'd say this week went well, though it was long and stressful.

Started off with my birthday, which was cool. I got sung to a bunch of times in my various theater classes, and I passed out See's candy lollipops to my friends. They were a huuuge hit; people keep asking me if I've got any left. Sunday night I went to Max Brenner's with Elle which was easily one of my top favorite meals I've ever had. They're famous for their chocolate but the food was good too. I got really yummy mac 'n cheese. My birthday itself was pretty low-key, I spent most of the evening in rehearsal but I didn't mind, I usually spend my birthday in rehearsal for something anyway.

The majority of my classes are just the second half of a year long class, so there's really only two new classes this semester. I'm taking Advanced College Essay, and Expressive Cultures: The Graphic Novel. The first class is really just another freshman writing class, which I'm not a fan of, but I have to take it. The second class is easily my favorite class of the semester--we just spend the entire semester reading and analyzing comic books. What's better than that?! And it fulfills a GE requirement so it's not even a useless class. The professor is really cool, it's a lecture-based class but he's open to discussion whenever it arises. My recitation section is okay, the preceptor has a really heavy Indian accent so it's hard to understand her sometimes. But there are two guys who consider themselves very well versed in comic books so that'll be a good resource.

The majority of my week has been spent in rehearsals for Once on This Island, which is coming along really well. I'm so amazed by the talent in the show. And the director, Chris, is basically genius. Even though I'm not in the show, I pay attention to whenever he gives a big, impassioned speech about the show. I feel like I can learn from him even though he's not directing me... directly (hehe). The choreographer, Melissa, is a graduate of the Vocal Performance program so she knows a bunch of the juniors and seniors in the show. It got pretty confusing during the first couple of rehearsals so I told the cast members to call me Goldman. Sometimes they forget, but it usually works. Overall I really like working with this team. They definitely respect me and treat me as an equal which I appreciate. I don't feel like I'm just another student. Right now I don't have much to do but I know that once we get into the theater and start tech, it's going to be crazy.